According to widespread reports, Pennsylvania’s former U.S. senator wants to persuade GOP nomination rival Newt Gingrich to bow out, hoping to capture the voters that would have supported Gingrich.

View full sizeJAE C. HONG, The Associated PressRepublican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during a primary election night party in Cranberry, Pa., on April 3.

The fantasy scheme moves into the realm of Santorum deluding himself. He aims to navigate the convoluted corridors of intraparty bureaucracy and convert Texas’ May 29 proportional primary into a winner-take-all snatch-and-grab contest.

The scenarios above are not remotely likely. And the sheer notion that Santorum has considered such faint possibilities suggests that the inevitable air of despondency has finally descended upon the underdog’s presidential aspirations.

Despite an increasingly massive delegate deficit to GOP front-runner Mitt Romney — 658-281, according to The Associated Press — Santorum has remained defiant that he will stay in the race, at least through May.

That’s when he hopes to carry Texas and its 155 delegates by wooing its huge bloc of evangelical Christians.

He has reason to reach for that distant lifeline.

Last month, about 200 Lone Star State conservative leaders strategized on behalf of Santorum and reportedly raised $1.8 million for him.

Still, Texas is a daunting objective, given the wave of establishment GOP momentum that’s steadily grown behind Romney. Former President George H.W. Bush, who lives in Texas, met with Romney in Houston last month and gave him his endorsement.

And Texas Gov. Rick Perry — a former presidential candidate himself — has thrown his support behind Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker.

“What was a rich environment for Sen. Santorum is definitely getting more difficult,” said Dave Carney, a longtime senior Perry political adviser. “Romney’s doing better and better with conservative [Texas] voters every week, so it’s going to be very difficult for Santorum to have much legs in Texas without a significant groundswell of victories before.”

That groundswell must start with the April 24 primary in Pennsylvania, the state that Santorum represented in Congress for 16 years.

But polls show his once-commanding lead over Romney has withered away.

A Thursday Rasmussen Reports poll of likely Pennsylvania GOP voters had Santorum drawing 42 percent to Romney’s 38 percent. And a Public Policy Polling survey released the same day showed Romney beating Santorum, 42 percent to 37 percent.

If Santorum takes Pennsylvania, Romney could still capture many of the state’s delegates if he finishes a close second.

Time for a graceful exit?

Santorum was beaten soundly in the 2006 Senate race. He saw his political career written off after suffering a historic 17-point defeat to Democrat Bob Casey Jr.

But Santorum clawed himself back into the national political sphere with a series of unlikely 2012 primary victories. They came with very little campaign organization and even less money.

“I rode on an airplane with Rick Santorum in December of 2011 and I asked him who his campaign manager was, and he said himself,” said former Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson.

“So he’s come a long way and I think gained a great deal of stature and admiration,” Nicholson said. “But I don’t think he can win the nomination, and I think for his own interest he should consider at some point a graceful exit to protect the status he’s won for his future.”

Most of Santorum’s re-constructed status has come from primary wins in traditional Republican strongholds dominated by Christian conservatives whose politics — like his own — are shaped by their strong religious faith.

But Santorum has failed to carry major Midwest industrial swing-state primaries that the eventual GOP nominee must win in order to claim the White House in November.

Recognizing the precious general election value of Ohio — the state no Republican has become president without winning — Santorum tried to recast his narrow loss there as a moral victory.

But a Romney campaign analysis of four Midwest open primary states, including Ohio, shows a wider gap among Republicans that Santorum would be hard-pressed to positively spin.

Unlike those other states that allow Democrat and independents to vote in Republican primaries, Pennsylvania allows only registered Republicans to vote in the GOP primary.

Texans won’t waste votes

Still, the slim prospect of Texas rescuing Santorum’s flagging campaign might be too tempting for him to ignore. The strategy that’s been floated to get there is tenuous at best.

In addition to turning Gingrich — who’s already flatly declined the invitation — Santorum will have to turn the Texas GOP and the Republican National Committee.

Texas politics is so knotty that a contemptuous fight over the state’s redistricting delayed scheduling the primary until March 1.

Santorum has laid his groundwork by publicly complaining of subtle RNC favoritism toward Romney in the primary process. He’ll hope that the RNC, sensitive to such accusations, will be more inclined to allow a last-minute change in Texas to a winner-take-all primary.

But Nicholson, the former RNC chairman, said such complaints are typical and usually are not acted upon.

“I can attest to the great amount of paranoia that prevails particularly among the underdog candidates,” he said. “It’s very normal to feel that way and for the RNC to be accused of that. But I can tell you from firsthand contact that the RNC has gone out of their way to be neutral.”

Even if Santorum persuaded the RNC to make the change, he would have to battle Romney and his deep pockets. And he’d have to vie with Gingrich, who was born in Harrisburg and grew up in Hummelstown.

View full sizeHARAZ N. GHANBARI, The Associated Press Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich waits to speak at Georgetown University in March in Washington. D.C.

In the unlikely event Texas became a winner-take-all contest, it would prompt a very serious change in the way Gingrich approached Texas, said Gingrich campaign chairman and former Pennsylvania congressman Bob Walker.

“Texas is big enough that there’s room for a couple of conservatives to come out of there having won some delegates,” Walker said. But if it became a winner-take-all state, “At that point we would have to put significant resources into the state.”

Meanwhile, Romney has ceased acknowledging his nomination rivals and begun directing all of his rhetorical resources toward challenging President Barack Obama.

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